EP 21: Grady Thomas [P-FUNK]
/Lifetime Achievement Grammy winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, and Original P-Funkateer GRADY THOMAS’ first job in the music biz wasn’t all that glamorous. “I had a job working at a record plant,” he explains. “I used to drive a truck around to all the stores delivering records and stuff.” One day, something amazing snuck up on him. “I was driving” he remembers, “and all of a sudden, I heard our record on the radio.” That song was “(I Wanna) Testify” by the PARLIAMENTS, a little doo wop group he had with his barbershop buddies Calvin Simon, Fuzzy Haskins, Ray Davis, and George Clinton. Grady was so shocked he almost ran off the road. “I liked to have an accident,” he laughs. At a stop, he discovered that the single was among the records he was about to carry into the store. “That was the start of us going from local yokels to a respectable group,” he says.
Born 80 years ago in Newark, New Jersey, Grady was musically inclined from an early age. He started playing drums on pots and pans at 9, then moved on to bongos. His pops played the saxophone, so Grady told him he wanted to learn, too. His dad handed him the clarinet. Grady was definitively nonplussed. He couldn’t stand that “corny” sound. So he might as well sing. At Cleveland Junior High, he did just that with his buddy Calvin Simon—or “Big Cal” as “Shady” Grady calls him, “tall drink of water.”
But our story really begins with a hairdo all the brothers wanted back then: the process, where lye is used to straighten one’s curls. As a young man, Grady had one like any respectable soul singer, but it needed upkeep. “You’d get your hair done one week, and the next week your hair started falling apart,” Grady explains. “We had to go back and get a reset.” He usually went to his favorite spot, Supreme, but one day, in need of hairdo surgery once again, he found himself in a van parked in front of some dude’s house. There a barber reset Grady’s ‘do with nothing but a comb and a glass of water. “And that guy happened to be GC,” he says, aka George Clinton.
Sometime after that, Grady relocated to Plainfield, the Parliaments’ home base. They picked up Fuzzy Haskins from another band along the way, while Grady played the role of bass vocalist. But then they saw Ray Davis singing bass with another group and were blown away by his sound. They had to make room for him. “I told George… ‘Let me move up to baritone and see if we can get Ray,” explains Grady. “Ray always wanted to be with us, you know? I pulled Ray over with us and then we were all set.”
It’s important to remember that Grady was present for not only the formation of the Parliaments, but also their backing band, Funkadelic. A kid named Billy Nelson who hung around the barbershop was on guitar at first, but they needed someone new before he switched over to bass. Billy said he knew this guy named Eddie, so they had him come to Grady’s house to audition. “But you know what?” says Grady of the teenaged Eddie Hazel. “He wasn’t that doggone good… We told him ‘You sound good man, but don’t call us. We’ll call you.’” When Eddie came back sometime later, it was clear he had taken the criticism to heart. “Man, he was a terror,” recalls Grady of Hazel’s much improved guitar skills. “He was so bad.”
Most P-Funk fans know how the tale goes from there. The group’s humble vocal quintet origins began to blend with then give way to a whole new sound that was more about rockin FUNK. And from the self-titled Funkadelic and Parliament’s Osmium (1970), to the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein and Hardcore Jollies(1976), Grady had a blast taking it to the stage as part of the ever-expanding Parliament-Funkadelic caravan. “In them days, man, we was so happy and loving each other,” he says.
But throughout, there were red flags that weren’t always heeded in real time. According to Thomas, some vocal hooks that GC wound up taking credit for actually sprang forth at live shows. Examples of such jam-fueled compositions are “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks,” “I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing,” and other anthems. “Some of them songs we started on stage,” confirms Grady. “Next thing I know, some smart guy went to the studio without us and finished them.”
Indeed, the joys of success often made it hard to see that his best interests weren’t always being taken into account, especially when it came to credit and money. “I was just enjoying myself, making people happy… and dropping acid,” says Grady. “I wasn’t thinkin about no business. I was out there — sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I didn’t have to work at General Motors… We were ridin around the country… That was such a wonderful time.”
But by the time the late 70s came around, things stopped feeling so wonderful. George had brought in so many band members and inter-related musical entities that the OGs felt pushed to the side, with little financial reward to show for it. So Fuzzy, Calvin, and Grady put together a group, got a deal, and released Connections & Disconnections in 1980, co-produced with Greg Errico, drummer for Sly & the Family Stone and producer of Betty Davis. (The album has since been reissued under the name Who’s a Funkadelic?)
The fact that they called the group Funkadelic turned out to be a legal issue that annoyed the hell out of George, but the album itself is a gooey headwrecker, with funktastic tracks like “Connections,” “Call the Doctor,” “Who’s a Funkadelic?” and “The Witch,” a Wizard of Oz-inspired, 10-minute opus of dopeness created mostly by Grady, who was encouraged to write something that celebrated their newfound freedom. On composing the lyrics, Thomas quips: “It wasn’t hard to do because at that time we were so relieved not to be handled by the witch.”
Grady would wind up going back to sing with the P-Funk All-Stars here and there, but eventually he broke off to start a group with the other fellas again. This time they brought Ray Davis along and dubbed the conglomerate Original P — all the Parliaments except GC. They did an album for Westbound, What Dat Shakin’ (1998), and took the act on the road. Grady still talks about these times favorably today. “As much as I loved being a member of Parliament-Funkadelic,” he says, “this was really the best time of my life because now we was in control of our own destiny.” Thankfully, part of Grady’s destiny included receiving accolades for his work with P-Funk. In 1997, Prince inducted him along with 14 other original members of Parliament-Funkadelic into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Grady was also present to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys.
Today Grady lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, an area he loves. And after surviving eye surgery, a stroke, and congenital heart failure, he’s managed to push any hard feelings toward GC to the side. “Me personally, I wish them the best,” he says of Clinton and his current crew. “I wasn’t tryin to outdo them. We was just tryin to do it… The good times outweigh the bad times regardless.” And the door is always open for Thomas to come back for another Mothership ride. “I know I could go back there anytime I want. All I got to do is show up.” But this time he’ll make sure he’s well protected with a contract.
In this rare gem of an interview, Grady raps about riding with the Parliaments from New Jersey to Chicago to audition for Motown—where Martha Reeves was a secretary at the time—and the group’s transition from doo woppers to psychedelic hippie flower children. Grady also talks about how he got his personal purple style, being mistaken for George by journalists, how Tiki Fulwood became the drummer for Funkadelic, and why Ray Davis was the best bass singer ever.
Produced & Hosted by Ace Alan
Cohosted by Jay Stone
w/ Content Produced by Jay Double You!
Website & Art by 3chards
Engineered by Nick “Waes” Carden at the Blue Room in Oakland, CA
But we couldn’t have done it without Mawnstr and especially Scott Sheppard
Intro track “I Can Never Be” from Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth by the Funkanauts. Go get it wherever music is sold. RIP Brotha P.
WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBSXQO6sX4
